About Me

Qichen (Dylan) Di is a second-year Master of Urban Planning Student concentrating in Transportation and Mobility Planning at Sol Price School of Public Policy, University of Southern California (USC). He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Geography (Environment & Sustainability) and Urban Studies from the University of British Columbia. Dylan is now an intern transportation engineer/planner at Fehr & Peers at the Long Beach office. Before joining Fehr & Peers, he was a research assistant at Urban Data Lab and METRANS Transportation Consortium in the academic year 2022-2023.

Dylan’s research focuses on evaluating policy incentives to promote new technologies in transportation planning. His training experience in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) supports his work to visualize inner cities’ key statistics and resource distribution. His recent significant research was on spatial accessibility of facilities in China-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City using GIS and the accessibility’s impact on living justice. He is conducting directed research on mini-size electric vehicles booming in Chinese and European cities and the potential effects of introducing mini-size EVs into the United States market. Dylan seeks to identify policy frameworks encouraging the integration of various new technologies into urban transportation systems and then develop comprehensive strategies that improve mobility, reduce congestion, enhance safety, and minimize environmental impacts.

Dylan’s responsibility as an intern transportation engineer/planner includes assisting in building forecast models and creating visual communication products for proposed projects. Besides, Dylan is involved in environmental impact assessment, meteorology, conservation, and Asian culture study during his study. He participated in several student research seminars and activities in UBC Geography. Dylan led two undergrad research programs, a pollution analysis in Abbotsford and Prince George, BC, and a policy prediction for City of Vancouver’s plastic ban. He received nominations from UBC Undergraduate Conference of Chinese Studies 3MT Competition twice and won the People’s Choices prize for his speech on modern Chinese movie study in 2022.

Dylan is living in Los Angeles, CA. He was born and raised in Huaibei, Anhui, China. He moved to LA from Vancouver, BC, Canada, where he attended undergraduate school and worked for years.